1. Field
Apparatuses consistent with the exemplary embodiments relate to a portable apparatus for detecting abnormal masses of a tissue, such as breast cancer (e.g., handheld breast cancer screening device), and more specifically, to a portable apparatus capable of detecting breast cancer by setting a reference signal for a differential amplifier based on one point in a breast area instead of using a right leg driver (RLD).
2. Description of the Related Art
Breast cancer is a disease that is frequently found in females. It is possible to increase the survival rate of females with breast cancer when the breast cancer is diagnosed and treated at an early stage. However, since there is no prognosis at an early stage of breast cancer in many cases, it is not easy to confirm breast cancer. While breast cancer screening may be performed through regular health screening, it is difficult to distinguish breast cancer from a cyst or a breast tissue growth when a size of the tissue is not large. Therefore, when the size of the tissue is a certain size (e.g., about 10 mm) or greater, precise diagnosis is performed by using various diagnostic devices such as X-ray, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In the related art, a breast cancer screening method is disclosed in Korea Patent Application Nos. 10-2009-0096934 and 10-2008-0004564. One example is to use X-rays to detect the presence of a lesion of a breast and a microcalcification lesion, but the procedure often give the subject a discomfort or pain because it is performed while the breast is pressed.
Normal somatic cells in a human body undergo a division process including a resting stage and a differentiating stage. In this case, a cell membrane is open and an ion exchange with tissues of other cells is active in a cell during the division process, and thus a potential difference between the cell membrane and basal tissue increases. In general, in a normal cell, a potential difference is about −70 mV at the resting stage and −15 mV at the differentiating stage. On the other hand, similarly to the normal cell, a cancer cell is also differentiated through a normal process. However, unlike the normal cell, the cancer cell has a differentiation time that is about half of a differentiation time of the normal cell, and the differentiation time of the cancer cell is about one hour. However, since a normal cell has a function of regulating overdifferentiation in cell tissue, the cell tissue remains in a certain shape and size. However, a cancer cell proliferates infinitely because the cancer cell does not have such a regulating function. About 1 million of cancer cells are necessary to form a cancer tissue having a diameter of about 1 cm. Among them, about 30,000 cancer cells are differentiated daily without cell death, and a potential difference of −15 to −40 mV is consistently maintained in a malignant tumor through such differentiation. When such a potential difference is detected, it is possible to distinguish tumor tissue having a small size.
In a method of the related art disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0794721B, a presence of an abnormal tissue and/or abnormal cellular activities are detected by measuring an amount of change in a capacitance of a biosensor according to a change in an electromagnetic field of a human body input through a biosensor and then converting a deviation from a reference value into a deviation of a frequency for measurement Also, in a method of the related art disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0794721B, a measurement time of about 30 minutes is necessary to obtain a balance of a biological signal when the biological signal is measured.